Who Killed the Avro Arrow?

by Chris Gainor

A fascinating examination of the international politics, pressures and personalities behind one of the most controversial decisions in Canadian history, the mothballing of the incredibly sophisticated jet fighter, the Avro Arrow.

Genres: Aviation, Canada, Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 2007

Reviews

[Elsabe Retief]

History by nature seems to me like an endless pointing of fingers and a game of blame. And the entire book is just that. By adding a conspiracy theory ( Avro staff was all dismissed that fateful Black Friday to see if they could blackmail the government into continuing the program) I completely lost my empathy for the case being made.
And here we are back in that game with oil. Should Canada build pipelines for billions of dollars or should we move we develop electrical cars with everything we have and stop spending in the oil industry?
Just like when we were debating after super 6 films for movies 🎥 whether we should be getting Beta or VHS to watch movies, only to be kicked out of the market by CD’s and DVD’s only to be replaced by streaming. How does one know how to progress? And there is nobody who would know. And in 50 years we will be going over the facts and debating our actions endlessly blaming this oil company and that bad engineer or politician or billionaire trying to point fingers and playing the blame game. Ugh!

[The Chapter Conundrum (Stacey)]

I'm not sorry that I read this book as I now have a greater appreciation for the history of my local area and other Canadian issues however, I was very frustrated at the structure of this book (not chronological), found that it was very long-winded and repetitive, and was full of dry details. I probably would have it enjoyed it much more at half the length.

[Sam]

Interesting look at the Arrow program as well as the varying causes that combined to end the development of the aircraft.

Part Two, while it adds some new details to the story, is really a summary of everything covered earlier in the book so it seems quite repetitive in the later portions of the book.

[Brian Grouhel]

This was an interesting book on how the Avro Arrow came to be and the events that led to the program being cancelled in the middle of the cold war. It makes one want to find some of the other books that have been written on this subject!